NPA and PSNC Fights To Stop Pharmacy Cuts

National Pharmacy Association (NPA) and Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) legal actions against the Department of Health will be heard side by side week commencing 20th of March 2017 in the High Court.

NPA legal challenge is partly based on the Department of Health’s failure to consider the impact “its cuts will have on the elderly, the disabled and people from Black and Minority Ethnic communities”. Had the Department of Health carried out effective “Equality Impact Assessment, it would have realised that the cuts will have an uneven effect on people with legally protected characteristics and those who live in the most deprived areas of England, where there is already a lack of NHS healthcare provision”.

PSNC is seeking a Judicial Review on the grounds that it believes the Secretary of State for Health failed to carry out a lawful consultation on the proposals for community pharmacy cuts.
It believes the Department of Health used “poor data” that it did not disclose as a basis for its decision, as opposed to updating “existing high quality data”.

If either case is successful, the pharmacy cuts nightmare might just be over.